Active-Learning Discovery of Superionic Compositions Using High-Throughput EIS and Structure-Aware Descriptors

Abstract

We introduce an active-learning framework that closes the loop between high-throughput EIS measurements and structure-aware composition descriptors to discover superionic candidates under realistic processing constraints. Starting from a small seed set, Gaussian-process and tree-based models propose batched experiments that maximize information gain on conductivity and activation energy while enforcing uncertainty-aware Kramers–Kronig quality gates. Descriptor families integrate interpretable features: ionic radius mismatch, framework softness, site connectivity from simple graph-derived motifs, and processing proxies (grain size from Scherrer, porosity, interphase penalty terms). We demonstrate rapid convergence to high-conductivity regions in multi-component chalcogenide and halide spaces using the automated multi-site EIS workflow described separately. Across three material spaces, the approach reduces experiments ~3× versus grid sampling while yielding candidates with improved conductivity at moderate temperatures and stable impedance upon cycling. We release a lightweight, reproducible stack (metadata schema, analysis notebooks, and synthetic datasets) to encourage community benchmarking without proprietary infrastructure. The result is a pragmatic path to self-driving electrolyte discovery that prioritizes experimental tractability and interpretability—features that matter for industrial translation and cross-lab reproducibility. Keywords: active learning; Bayesian optimization; EIS QC; interpretable descriptors; high-throughput screening; solid electrolytes